


Steel

by jonathanesque



Category: The Nevernight Chronicles - Jay Kristoff
Genre: Character Study, Introspection, Missing Scene, One-Shot, Reflection, and the hideousness of her reflection, brief mention of Miash, her realest parts, with a constant ache in her belly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:48:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25963120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonathanesque/pseuds/jonathanesque
Summary: In the long quiet hours of the nevernight without her passengers, a murderous bitch is alone with her heart.A one-shot about Mia's emotional state between her “betrayal” of the Falcons and her arrival at Godsgrave Arena. As with my previous one-shot, this is set duringGodsgraveyet filtered through the thematic prism ofDarkdawn.
Kudos: 1





	Steel

**Author's Note:**

> _The Nevernight Chronicles_ and all of its characters/locations/etc were created by Jay Kristoff.

Mia Corvere hadn’t been this comfortable in a long time.

Granted, that wasn’t saying much. Not when your most recent living accommodations were drenched in dehydration and steeped in literal shit. Not when your life over the past several months was a grotesque facsimile of humanity itself – a thing indistinguishable from any free citizen of the Republic, breathing and consuming and defecating just like them, if not for the ancient legalese dictating otherwise. Not when your continued existence underneath Aa's sizzling gleam hinged upon the swift and grisly deprivation of it from countless others, all for the fleeting amusement of the chestnut gallery.

She spread her legs gingerly across the ragged mattress, trying to avoid running afoul once more of a dozen-or-so snapped coils jutting upwards. Shot an apathetic glance towards a subpar fresco portraiture of some long-forgotten Itreyan bishop. Took in a generous swig of musty, contaminated cabin air.

These were the merest increments of upward mobility, and she fucking well knew it.

But still, her limbs weren't cramping. Her lips weren't cracking. And her nostrils were merely reluctant to inhale its surroundings, rather than abjectly mortified.

Mia leaned back and grinned.

_Good enough for me._

It was all the thanks Domina Leona could muster after she'd saved her collegium from exhaling it’s final breath. She couldn’t afford to be too generous with her – however briefly, she _did_ partake in the violent insurrection of Sidonius and six other stablemates. Had even joined them in clobbering the poor houseguards senseless and puncturing the throats of a handful of Luminatii sentries, heaping some extra upkeep upon an already-strained operating budget.

But ultimately, Mia turned her back on the men and women she’d fought alongside for the past few months. Truth told, she’d risked life and limb to help them whenever they found themselves in serious trouble, in the sands of the magni and elsewhere.

Now, however?

_They can help themselves if they want to._

As a further display of renewed loyalty to her masters, the murderous (and dupliticious) little bitch named Crow proferred the idea of arranging a warm-up execution bout on the big turn – sending a stark message to all wannabe revolutionaries scattered across every gladiatii collegium of the Republic _and_ procuring a much-needed purse for the overworked domina, all in one fell stroke. Not only that, but she’d actually requested to wield the blade herself, to be the one who sundered the bellies of her insubordinate ex-stablemates in front of the packed coliseum.

Leona had her misgivings, of course. Her father had already booked the turn’s customary execution bout on behalf of his illustrious collegium, and while multiple execution bouts in the same undercard weren’t unheard of, it’d take no small amount of cajoling to get the editorii’s approval in such short notice – especially if it meant endangering the health of one of the only two Falcons slotted for the main event.

Yet the raven-haired slip of a girl, who’d insisted with all the ferocity and ruthlessness by which she’d butchered all of her opponents in the arena, was ultimately granted her wish by the domina. Perhaps that was the immensity of her gratitude towards Crow’s last-minute change of heart. Perhaps she’d even glimpsed a wintersdeep reflection of her dogged tenacity against impossible odds.

Truth told, Mia also saw a fair bit of herself in Leona. Not just what she was, but an eerie image of what _could’ve_ been in a divergent plane of reality. One in which a frail and feeble 10-year-old girl never came to grasp the color of fear. One in which she never baked inside kiln-hot cages or dozed atop foul-smelling haystacks for months on end. One in which she lived in peace and married someone beautiful and perhaps even held a daughter in her arms.

A woman who lived both good and well.

Slowly but surely, Mia felt her limbs cramping. Her lips cracking. Her nostrils wilting at the pungence of unwashed sackcloth and moldy hardwood.

Truedark pupils narrowing into razor-sharp slits.

Hatred and resentment and that O, so delicious rage.

_That bitch._

_That fucking bitch._

After all her months in the Remus Collegium, sweating and bleeding and killing for the delight of boorish ingrates, lining the pockets of men and women who regarded her and everyone else beneath them as subhuman, glimpsing the depths of debasement that greased the wheels of the Itreyan Republic – her eyes were well and truly open, now. Whatever sympathy Mia might’ve still carried for Leona and her plight, whatever their shared personality traits and the tragic parallels of their respective pasts, each having dead mothers to grieve and smug-faced bastards to loathe with all of their fibers?

Truth was, it’d evaporated into ashes.

Her upper body sank deeper into her mattress, legs awkwardly slung over the bed frame’s side, staring blankly into the ceiling. Arkemical light fixtures blotting into shapeless mosaics. Throat heaving with each fresh gasp. Sickness in her stomach, knowing full well most of her stablemates were bound and chained in the hold underneath, their very lives resting upon the convoluted machinations of a girl they'd barely known at all. Echoes in her eardrums, the percussion of painful memories and all the comrades who didn’t make it, Matteo and Byern and Otho and the 11-year-old slave girl named Maggot.

At that last name, Mia traced several fingertips across the rims of freshly dewed eyelids. She tried her hardest not to vividly recall the exact moment of her passing, the oozing lungfuls and the convulsions and the glass-eyed stare at the end, trying and failing.

With a hateful snarl, she forced herself to picture the domina instead. Her auburn locks, blood-red lips and graceful gowns stitched from rippling silk. Having herself a merry ol’ time mere turns from the grand games, perhaps? A rowdy piss-up inside the crassly opulent ballroom of some rich bastard’s palazzo, swaying to the improvisation of a twelve-piece band, imbibing only the finest goldwines and exchanging coy glances with pampered young dons, not the faintest care in the worl–

In a whirl, the 17-year-old girl rose to her elbows and shifted into a sitting position.

_No, Mia._

_No._

Curling up her fists.

_The wolf does not pity the lamb._

Gritting her teeth.

_The storm begs no forgiveness of the drowned._

Hardening her heart.

_I am steel._

Over and over, exactly as a believer might.

_I am steel._

_I am steel._

_I am steel._

_I am steel._

Firmly shutting her gaze, truedark pupils awash in abstract blurs and swirls–

–and then opening them, thrusting them back into the panorama of a disheveled cabin chamber.

Each shutting just a little less abstract and blurry.

Each opening just a little more wide and moist.

Shutting and opening.

Over and over.

After a minute or so, Mia reluctantly made her choice. Allowed her gaze to hang wide, consciously making sure to blink as little as humanly possible. Not wishing to behold what was coalescing within the innermost depths of her pupils.

Fearing it.

Had this been literally any other nevernight, all this nonsense would’ve been done and dusted already. Every so often, her conjunctiva liked to pull a fast one on her, sought to pollute her sleeping hours with a barrage of unwanted patterns and visages. And just like clockwork, her shadow passengers stood poised to tear those patterns and visages to ribbons.

Not on this nevernight, alas.

Per her own instructions, Mister Kindly and Eclipse were tending to important matters elsewhere. Her trusty not-cat was at the Godsgrave chapel, accompanying Mercurio and a 14-year-old girl named Belle as they discussed the logistics of smuggling out the interned Falcons after their 'execution'. The not-wolf was likewise conferring with Ashlinn as she’d tried on her stolen editorii garb and readied all the necessary items, the Swoon and the spring-loaded blade and the crate of poisoned Albari. One final round of ironing and polishing before the crescendo.

Which meant that she was all alone in this cabin. No shadows to keep her company, nothing to soothe her nerves or sharpen her concentration or permit her any semblance of a decent sleep within mere turns of the Itreyan Republic’s most revered ballet of bloodshed. All the pieces were _exactly_ where she needed them to be – she couldn’t allow the entire chessboard to come crashing down due to a lack of rest.

_They’ll be back any moment_ , she assured herself. Sought comfort in the certainty that the shadowpets would slither past the half-awake Luminatii guards stationed outside the door, would retake their rightful place underneath her feet and she would go back to her normal self. Her _true_ self. Unflinching and unfearing and unstoppable, a force of nature who spared no thought for pain or consequences. As she was, and should, and would forever be.

Until then, however?

She was alone.

Mia slumped backwards into the mattress, clamping her eyes shut once more. Ignoring the quease in her belly, the quivering of her sweat-drenched palms. Fighting the patterns and visages within, forcing them to conjure her long-desired endgame, standing upon the central plinth of Godsgrave Arena, gore-splattered and triumphant.

_I am steel._

A holy brigand’s unholy froth as she cut his bulbaceous throat to the bone.

_I am steel._

A beautiful consul’s hideous shrieks as she cleaved across the cavity where a heart should’ve been.

_I am steel._

All the sanguilas and all the blood masters in their private boxes, gagging and writhing from the trays of poisoned goldwine.

_I am steel._

A howling mob’s adoration curdling into abject horror as every last goddessforsaken bastard of the Republic toppled to the tempo of a maestro’s opus.

_I am steel._

And she herself, the firstborn of a murdered house, the child of a failed rebellion, the orphaned girl and the darkin assassin and the undercover gladiatii, screaming her name at the top of her lungs, a name that history would never, _ever_ forget.

_I am steel._

All that she’d wrought over the past three years or so?

_I am steel._

All she’d lied and stolen and broken and killed?

_I am steel._

All would be worth it in the end, right?

_I am steel._

Right?

_I am steel._

A crassly opulent ballroom inside some rich bastard’s palazzo.

_I am steel._

Built and shaped like an amphitheater, coaxial rows and fluorescent plumes and the improvisation of a twelve-piece band.

_I am steel._

Swaying throngs of enterprising young dons and donas, imbibing only the finest goldwines and exchanging coy glances and having a merry ol’ time at this rowdy piss-up, not the faintest care in the worl–

_I am steel I am steel I am steel._

_I am steel I am steel I am steel._

_Iamsteeliamsteeliamsteeliamsteeliamsteeliamsteeliamste–_

But the mantra lost all it’s luster. The allure and anticipation of her vengeance wasn’t enough to shelter her, wasn’t enough to ward off what had coalesced within the innermost depths of her pupils. All her walls crumbled, all her battlements ground to fine dust, whisked away by the cool sliver threading her barenaked soul. Wide open or firmly shut, it made no difference now.

Mia couldn’t unsee it any longer.

Couldn’t unsee _him_.

A young man. Mid-to-late twenties, most likely. Donning a half-masque patterned after Aa’s trinary bask, the golden iconography of twin steeds lovingly sewn across the breast pocket of a lily-white frock coat. An enchanting smile and chiseled cheekbones and a jawline that you could shatter gravebone with.

Time stopped turning, the world stopped spinning. All of the guests were gone, the mezzanine ceased it’s melody. It was just her on the dance floor, the don in his private booth. His charming complexion was locked in blessed perpetuity, unsoiled by all that was wrought afterwards, the ending he’d been gifted underneath. She tried her hardest not to vividly recall the exact moment of his passing, the oozing lungfuls and the convulsions and the glass-eyed stare at the end.

Trying and failing.

_“When you take a person out of the world…”_

Mia allowed herself to bore deep into his gaze, then. The last offering she’d performed as a Blade of the Red Church. The bidding she’d unwittingly carried out on behalf of the tyrant she sought to avenge herself upon. All the questions she could’ve asked then, now swimming inside her head, now ringing like cathedral bells.

_“...you don’t just take_ them _, do you?”_

He wasn't an 11-year-old slave who'd become collateral damage in an underperforming collegium. Wasn't some sobbing, nameless child who'd been gagged and knelt as a prospective sacrifice for the Maw. Wasn’t a pit fighter or an enemy gladiatii or even an ordinary foot soldier of the Republic.

Gaius Aurelius was the firstborn of a senator. Wealthy and worldly and well-connected. He’d owned slaves, reaped the loyal servitude of armed legions, had intended to pursue nothing less than the consulship itself – and really, who’s to say Consul Aurelius would’ve been any different from Consul Scaeva? Would’ve he been any better? Some sort of savior, driven by the cruelty and injustice of this system? Or merely another bastard, driven by the pure and burning desire for power?

Truth was, he’d never truly understood the depths of hunger or thirst or want, had never come to grasp the color of fear. He’d lived in peace and kissed goddess knows how many beauties and perhaps, in a divergent plane of reality, would’ve even held a son in his arms.

A man who lived both good and well.

* * *

“...YOU’VE GOTTA HAND IT TO THE VAANIAN GIRL…”

“...ashlinn? what about her…?”

“...SHE’S GOT AN EXCELLENT TONGUE…”

“...been snooping on her sleepovers with mia, i take it…?”

“...O, YOU SICK FREAK, I WASN’T TALKING ABOUT _THAT_. HER SENSE OF HUMOR. SOME OF THE NICKNAMES SHE COMES UP WITH…”

“...nicknames…?”

“...OF YOU, LITTLE MOGGY. I’M PARTICULARLY FOND OF ‘MISTER CONGENIALITY’... ”

“...piss off...”

“...DELIGHTFUL AS EVER…”

The shapeless daemons bobbed and weaved across the grimy contours of the _Gloryhound_ , dodging whatever scant few sailors and guards were saddled with the auxiliary shift on the cusp of truelight. Their passage was but a faint tingle in their calves, their bickering indiscernible from muddled memories of far too many exhausting turns wasted quarreling with entitled stowaways and obtuse upper management.

After having spent most of the nevernight flitting across the Sea of Silence and back again, the not-cat and the not-wolf found themselves tucked inside the narrow silhouette of a wooden barrel, standing mere feet from the entrance of a cabin chamber which was presently guarded by a pair of Luminatii. The arkemical globe installed above the door was faltering, delivering approximately one or two seconds’ worth of darkness per every six or so of feeble illumination.

Had the sentries picked just the right six seconds to look down, they would’ve noticed their own shadows just a shade darker than the norm – perhaps they would’ve even glimpsed a slight rippling about their feet.

Alas, their line of sight remained fortright.

Licking his translucent paw, Mister Kindly surveyed the interior of the cabin – rotting hardwood, faded portraitures, crates of expired foodstuffs and, at the center of it all, a tattered and pointy sackcloth mattress which had been very awkwardly fitted atop a charred metallic bed frame.

“...mia…?”

To his and Eclipse’s confusion, the 17-year-old girl was sitting at the edge of the mattress rather than sleeping on it. Her ankles were criss-crossed beneath one of the frame’s legs, elbows rested atop her lap, long and frazzled locks of pitch-black hair draped across both ends of her face.

Solemnly bent.

“...YOU’VE BEEN AWAKE THIS WHOLE TIME…?”

“...had a spooky dream without us…?”

At the not-cat’s attempted joke, Mia flipped a slow and groggy knuckle in the general vicinity of the floor. Otherwise, the girl remained quiet as a catacomb as Mister Kindly and Eclipse coalesced at her feet, once again dark enough for three. The passengers took note of the wet glistening in the strands nested closest to her brow, the moistness in her sleeves, the slightly heavier-than-normal rippling of her silhouette...

"...so?" The girl inquired. "How'd it go?"

A rich, silky gust caressed the back of her neck.

“...ashlinn and mercurio swapped the crates. belle's carriage is ready for departure. teardrinker has arrived in whitekeep and awaits further instructions. all is proceeding as you requested…”

A slight pause.

“...may i ask…?”

Mister Kindly’s voice trailed off, perhaps hoping she’d understood the gist of it. This wasn’t the first time the not-cat had returned from his reconnaissance duties, be it regrouping with Mia's allies or stalking the bargain-bin melodramas of Leona’s inner circle, only to glimpse her in such a manner that utterly belied her public notoriety.

Truth told, such instances happened with alarming frequency in the past month or so.

“I’m sorry,” Mia sighed, slowly lifting her head. “Please don’t get mad at me...”

The twin shadows were puzzled by her apologetic tenor.

“...MAD AT YOU…?”

Mia didn’t immediately respond. With her left hand, she flicked aside several locks of hair, unveiling truedark pupils that were simultaneously puffy and damp, razor-thin lips pierced by trails of drying moisture emanating from her eyelids and nostrils.

“A slight change of plans,” she whispered. “Eclipse… go talk to Mercurio, neh?”

At once, the shadows at her feet stirred, the shapeless form of a wolf retracting from it, leaving it dark enough for two. The not-wolf’s snout was upright in the direction of the teenage girl who’d been her second and current master, her inky posture shining through with decades of unquestioning loyalty and obedience.

“...YES…?”

“...change of plans…?” Mister Kindly’s inquiry was velvet smooth against her earlobes. “...what do you mean…?”

Mia forced a wan smile as she hunched over just a tad, her left hand gently stroking the empty air above the shadowpup whilst her right absentmindedly wiggled its fingers across her nape.

“It’s... it's about Leona.”

Slowly but surely, as her beloved shadowcat of almost eight years retook his rightful place underneath her feet, so did the grit in Mia’s cadence. Hard as iron. Strong as steel. Unflinching and unfearing and unstoppable.

But still, there was a twinge of discomfort in her lips. A lamentation, almost.

“I want her spared.”

**Author's Note:**

> My second _Nevernight_ fic! If you recall, there's a brief chapter in _Godsgrave_ titled "Interlude" in which Mister Kindly and Eclipse are hanging out at the eponymous city, arguing about how their prolonged cohabitation of Mia's silhouette may or may not be affecting her psyche. This one-shot (or the first two-thirds of it, anyway) is intended to be occurring in parallel to the approximate time frame of that chapter.
> 
> Once again, feel free to let me know what you thought.


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